This invention relates generally to a monitoring device. In particular, the present invention relates to a system for monitoring a person's location in a defined area.
In the United States alone, amusement parks currently attract more than 300 million visitors a year. Countless other people visit large indoor casinos, shopping malls, and similar destinations. Safety and convenience are important to these visitors, and a system that provides or enhances these qualities in a user-friendly and cost-effective manner would be welcomed. In particular, a system that eliminates child abductions, tracks lost guests, and helps guests communicate, navigate, and reunite would solve many problems associated with these destinations.
Various proposals for systems that monitor people are found in the art, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,742,233; 6,014,080; 6,243,039; 6,278,370; 6,362,778; 6,396,403; 6,569,011; and 6,606,556. While assumably effective for their intended purposes, none of the above proposals provide such an integrated and interactive system for monitoring people in a defined area that adds comparable safety and convenience. Therefore, it is desirable to have a system for monitoring a person's location in a defined area that is unobtrusive, can be used in a variety of settings, is able to monitor and distinguish between multiple people, activates an alarm when the system is disabled, adds convenience through such functions as mapping and directing, and is inexpensive.